Kristin Smith-Crowe | Boston University (original) (raw)

Papers by Kristin Smith-Crowe

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2013

ABSTRACT

The Academy of Management Annals, 2008

Research in Organizational Behavior, 2008

We assert that previous research has overlooked the pervasive ambiguity in ethical situations in ... more We assert that previous research has overlooked the pervasive ambiguity in ethical situations in organizations, as well as how people pierce through this ambiguity to realize new distinctions between right and wrong. Focusing on well-intentioned individuals who unknowingly transgress, we present a theory of how they come to recalibrate their moral judgments. We begin by discussing the composition and nature of a moral judgment. Building on this discussion, we then consider how external sanctions can be used to shift moral judgments. Finally, we posit that internal emotional responses to sanctions (namely embarrassment) will facilitate this shift by triggering a sense of moral deficiency. More specifically, we assert that embarrassment will focus the transgressor's attention on what went wrong. This reflection provides an opportunity for the recalibration of the initial moral judgment. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our theory. #

Personnel Psychology, 2002

In this investigation, we report the results of 2 studies designed to (a) conduct confirmatory fa... more In this investigation, we report the results of 2 studies designed to (a) conduct confirmatory factor analytic tests of a model of general safety performance with performance ratings from 550 coworker appraisals (Study 1), and (b) examine hypothesized relationships between indicators of breadth and depth of knowledge constructs and confirmed safety performance factors (from Study 1) with training history data and supervisory appraisals for 133 hazardous waste workers in 23 jobs and 4 organizations (Study 2). Confirmatory factor analytic results from Study 1 provided support for a 4-factor model of general safety performance with performance factors labeled Using Personal Protective Equipment, Engaging in Work Practices to Reduce Risk, Communicating Health and Safety Information, and Exercising Employee Rights and Responsibilities. In general, the results from Study 2 supported the hypothesized dominance of depth of knowledge over breadth of knowledge in the prediction of performance with respect to more routine, consistent safety tasks. Issues concerning the generalizability of these factors to other types of work and the human resource management implications of these results are discussed.

Organizational Research Methods, 2013

Currently, guidelines do not exist for applying interrater agreement indices to the vast majority... more Currently, guidelines do not exist for applying interrater agreement indices to the vast majority of methodological and theoretical problems that organizational and applied psychology researchers encounter. For a variety of methodological problems, we present critical values for interpreting the practical significance of observed average deviation (AD) values relative to either single items or scales. For a variety of theoretical problems, we present null ranges for AD values, relative to either single items or scales, to be used for determining whether an observed distribution of responses within a group is consistent with a theoretically specified distribution of responses. Our discussion focuses on important ways to extend the usage of interrater agreement indices beyond problems relating to the aggregation of individual level data.

Organizational Research Methods, 2003

Organization Science, 2014

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2003

Using training history data and supervisory ratings of 133 hazardous waste workers' safety perfor... more Using training history data and supervisory ratings of 133 hazardous waste workers' safety performance collected within two organizations in the U.S. nuclear waste industry, this study examined organizational climate for the transfer of safety training as a moderator of relationships between safety knowledge and safety performance. Tbe trend in tbe results was consistent with the hypothesis that these relationships would be stronger in the less restrictive (more supportive) organizational climate. The implications of these findings for promoting safe work bebaviors through tbe creation of a positive and strategically focused organizational climate for the transfer of safety training are discussed. attenuate predictor-criterion relationships (e.g., knowledge-performance relationships). That is, as organizational climate becomes more restrictive, we would expect the magnitudes of the correlations between individual difference variables (such as knowledge and performance) to decrease.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of ... more ABSTRACT This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011

On the basis of hypotheses derived from social and experiential learning theories, we meta-analyt... more On the basis of hypotheses derived from social and experiential learning theories, we meta-analytically investigated how safety training and workplace hazards impact the development of safety knowledge and safety performance. The results were consistent with an expected interaction between the level of engagement of safety training and hazardous event/exposure severity in the promotion of safety knowledge and performance. For safety knowledge and safety performance, highly engaging training was considerably more effective than less engaging training when hazardous event/exposure severity was high, whereas highly and less engaging training had comparable levels of effectiveness when hazardous event/exposure severity was low. Implications of these findings for theory testing and incorporating information on objective risk into workplace safety research and practice are discussed.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007

Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity-for example, in terms of values, p... more Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity-for example, in terms of values, personality, and demography-attracts, the authors found that sometimes demographic similarity attracts and sometimes it repels. Consistent with social dominance theory (J. , they demonstrated in 3 studies that when prospective employees supported group-based social hierarchies (i.e., were high in social dominance orientation), those in high-status groups were attracted to demographic similarity within an organization, whereas those in low-status groups were repelled by it. An important theoretical implication of the findings is that social dominance theory and traditional similarity-attraction notions together help explain a more complex relationship between demographic similarity and attraction than was previously acknowledged in the organizational literature.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

Despite the widespread use of interrater agreement statistics for multilevel modeling and other t... more Despite the widespread use of interrater agreement statistics for multilevel modeling and other types of research, the existing guidelines for inferring the statistical significance of interrater agreement are quite limited. They are largely relevant only under conditions that numerous researchers have argued rarely exist. Here we address this problem by generating guidelines for inferring statistical significance under a number of conditions via a computer simulation. As a set, these guidelines cover many of the conditions researchers commonly face. We discuss how researchers can use the guidelines presented to more reasonably infer the statistical significance of interrater agreement relative to using the limited guidelines available in the extant literature.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2003

The authors demonstrated that the most common statistical significance test used with r WG -type ... more The authors demonstrated that the most common statistical significance test used with r WG -type interrater agreement indexes in applied psychology, based on the chi-square distribution, is flawed and inaccurate. The chi-square test is shown to be extremely conservative even for modest, standard significance levels (e.g., .05). The authors present an alternative statistical significance test, based on Monte Carlo procedures, that produces the equivalent of an approximate randomization test for the null hypothesis that the actual distribution of responding is rectangular and demonstrate its superiority to the chi-square test. Finally, the authors provide tables of critical values and offer downloadable software to implement the approximate randomization test for r WG -type and for average deviation (AD)-type interrater agreement indexes. The implications of these results for studying a broad range of interrater agreement problems in applied psychology are discussed.

Social Justice Research, 2003

We present and discuss a theoretical model of an organization's ethical infrastructure, defined a... more We present and discuss a theoretical model of an organization's ethical infrastructure, defined as the organizational elements that contribute to an organization's ethical effectiveness. We propose that the infrastructure is composed of both formal and informal elements-including communication, surveillance, and sanctioning systems-as well as organizational climates for ethics, respect, and justice. We discuss the nature of the relationship between these elements and ethical behavior, the relative strength of each of these elements, and their impact on each other. Theoretical and practical implications of this model are presented.

Academy of Management Review, 2014

American Journal of Public Health, 2006

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2013

ABSTRACT

The Academy of Management Annals, 2008

Research in Organizational Behavior, 2008

We assert that previous research has overlooked the pervasive ambiguity in ethical situations in ... more We assert that previous research has overlooked the pervasive ambiguity in ethical situations in organizations, as well as how people pierce through this ambiguity to realize new distinctions between right and wrong. Focusing on well-intentioned individuals who unknowingly transgress, we present a theory of how they come to recalibrate their moral judgments. We begin by discussing the composition and nature of a moral judgment. Building on this discussion, we then consider how external sanctions can be used to shift moral judgments. Finally, we posit that internal emotional responses to sanctions (namely embarrassment) will facilitate this shift by triggering a sense of moral deficiency. More specifically, we assert that embarrassment will focus the transgressor's attention on what went wrong. This reflection provides an opportunity for the recalibration of the initial moral judgment. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our theory. #

Personnel Psychology, 2002

In this investigation, we report the results of 2 studies designed to (a) conduct confirmatory fa... more In this investigation, we report the results of 2 studies designed to (a) conduct confirmatory factor analytic tests of a model of general safety performance with performance ratings from 550 coworker appraisals (Study 1), and (b) examine hypothesized relationships between indicators of breadth and depth of knowledge constructs and confirmed safety performance factors (from Study 1) with training history data and supervisory appraisals for 133 hazardous waste workers in 23 jobs and 4 organizations (Study 2). Confirmatory factor analytic results from Study 1 provided support for a 4-factor model of general safety performance with performance factors labeled Using Personal Protective Equipment, Engaging in Work Practices to Reduce Risk, Communicating Health and Safety Information, and Exercising Employee Rights and Responsibilities. In general, the results from Study 2 supported the hypothesized dominance of depth of knowledge over breadth of knowledge in the prediction of performance with respect to more routine, consistent safety tasks. Issues concerning the generalizability of these factors to other types of work and the human resource management implications of these results are discussed.

Organizational Research Methods, 2013

Currently, guidelines do not exist for applying interrater agreement indices to the vast majority... more Currently, guidelines do not exist for applying interrater agreement indices to the vast majority of methodological and theoretical problems that organizational and applied psychology researchers encounter. For a variety of methodological problems, we present critical values for interpreting the practical significance of observed average deviation (AD) values relative to either single items or scales. For a variety of theoretical problems, we present null ranges for AD values, relative to either single items or scales, to be used for determining whether an observed distribution of responses within a group is consistent with a theoretically specified distribution of responses. Our discussion focuses on important ways to extend the usage of interrater agreement indices beyond problems relating to the aggregation of individual level data.

Organizational Research Methods, 2003

Organization Science, 2014

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2003

Using training history data and supervisory ratings of 133 hazardous waste workers' safety perfor... more Using training history data and supervisory ratings of 133 hazardous waste workers' safety performance collected within two organizations in the U.S. nuclear waste industry, this study examined organizational climate for the transfer of safety training as a moderator of relationships between safety knowledge and safety performance. Tbe trend in tbe results was consistent with the hypothesis that these relationships would be stronger in the less restrictive (more supportive) organizational climate. The implications of these findings for promoting safe work bebaviors through tbe creation of a positive and strategically focused organizational climate for the transfer of safety training are discussed. attenuate predictor-criterion relationships (e.g., knowledge-performance relationships). That is, as organizational climate becomes more restrictive, we would expect the magnitudes of the correlations between individual difference variables (such as knowledge and performance) to decrease.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of ... more ABSTRACT This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011

On the basis of hypotheses derived from social and experiential learning theories, we meta-analyt... more On the basis of hypotheses derived from social and experiential learning theories, we meta-analytically investigated how safety training and workplace hazards impact the development of safety knowledge and safety performance. The results were consistent with an expected interaction between the level of engagement of safety training and hazardous event/exposure severity in the promotion of safety knowledge and performance. For safety knowledge and safety performance, highly engaging training was considerably more effective than less engaging training when hazardous event/exposure severity was high, whereas highly and less engaging training had comparable levels of effectiveness when hazardous event/exposure severity was low. Implications of these findings for theory testing and incorporating information on objective risk into workplace safety research and practice are discussed.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007

Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity-for example, in terms of values, p... more Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity-for example, in terms of values, personality, and demography-attracts, the authors found that sometimes demographic similarity attracts and sometimes it repels. Consistent with social dominance theory (J. , they demonstrated in 3 studies that when prospective employees supported group-based social hierarchies (i.e., were high in social dominance orientation), those in high-status groups were attracted to demographic similarity within an organization, whereas those in low-status groups were repelled by it. An important theoretical implication of the findings is that social dominance theory and traditional similarity-attraction notions together help explain a more complex relationship between demographic similarity and attraction than was previously acknowledged in the organizational literature.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

Despite the widespread use of interrater agreement statistics for multilevel modeling and other t... more Despite the widespread use of interrater agreement statistics for multilevel modeling and other types of research, the existing guidelines for inferring the statistical significance of interrater agreement are quite limited. They are largely relevant only under conditions that numerous researchers have argued rarely exist. Here we address this problem by generating guidelines for inferring statistical significance under a number of conditions via a computer simulation. As a set, these guidelines cover many of the conditions researchers commonly face. We discuss how researchers can use the guidelines presented to more reasonably infer the statistical significance of interrater agreement relative to using the limited guidelines available in the extant literature.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2003

The authors demonstrated that the most common statistical significance test used with r WG -type ... more The authors demonstrated that the most common statistical significance test used with r WG -type interrater agreement indexes in applied psychology, based on the chi-square distribution, is flawed and inaccurate. The chi-square test is shown to be extremely conservative even for modest, standard significance levels (e.g., .05). The authors present an alternative statistical significance test, based on Monte Carlo procedures, that produces the equivalent of an approximate randomization test for the null hypothesis that the actual distribution of responding is rectangular and demonstrate its superiority to the chi-square test. Finally, the authors provide tables of critical values and offer downloadable software to implement the approximate randomization test for r WG -type and for average deviation (AD)-type interrater agreement indexes. The implications of these results for studying a broad range of interrater agreement problems in applied psychology are discussed.

Social Justice Research, 2003

We present and discuss a theoretical model of an organization's ethical infrastructure, defined a... more We present and discuss a theoretical model of an organization's ethical infrastructure, defined as the organizational elements that contribute to an organization's ethical effectiveness. We propose that the infrastructure is composed of both formal and informal elements-including communication, surveillance, and sanctioning systems-as well as organizational climates for ethics, respect, and justice. We discuss the nature of the relationship between these elements and ethical behavior, the relative strength of each of these elements, and their impact on each other. Theoretical and practical implications of this model are presented.

Academy of Management Review, 2014

American Journal of Public Health, 2006